The importance of reliable and continuous communications for critical functions has consistently increased. Protection of data and information technology services in the event of a disruptive situation has become an emphasized and visible priority.
Recovery capability of a telecommunications system is considered to represent the ability to return to a state where users of the telecommunications system may communicate with each other. In full recovery the telecommunications system typically returns to its original state, but recovery may be achieved also with lower level of services, as long as some type of communication is available to users. Recovery planning is an important aspect of network planning of telecommunications systems and involves defining recovery objectives and determining the most suitable recovery strategy for each part of the system.
An important object in recovery planning of mobile communications systems is thus to improve the security and reliability of communications between base stations and mobile switching exchanges. Conventionally these aspects have been dealt with in network planning by carefully designed duplication and redundancy schemes. However, the inevitable dilemma in recovery planning is that any recovery object metrics need to fit with the available budget. The cost associated with a target level of protection has easily made a desired corresponding high availability solution impractical. It is considered important to find ways to enhance recovery capability of a telecommunications system without significantly increasing the network resources required to achieve that.